The Colorado Avalanche jumped right back into action after the Olympic break with three games in four days. They won two and lost one, but are focused on the next game with the challenging schedule.
“The break was great, obviously, but the schedule is tough — jumping right back into it and go back-to-back. But, yeah, it’s good to just get thrown right back in the fire and start playing again,” Sam Malinski said after the 3-1 win over the Blackhawks.
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The Avs struggled the month before the nearly three-week hiatus. They remain the No. 1 team in the NHL, but it was a welcome time off with a reset in mind. The non-Olympic players utilized their rest and recovery time to prepare for the final stretch of the regular season.
Although the team practiced a few days before the first game back, the experience is not the same as actual game play.
“It’s so mental, just the way you have to see the ice. It’s hard to get that in practice. Before you get back to playing, you’re doing all your goalie school stuff, trying to be technical,” Mackenzie Blackwood said. “But when you get in the game, you have to have good reads. Be patient and technical — it’s the whole shebang. So it takes a little bit sometimes to feel good, but I think we’re doing a good job right now.”
Latest on the Avs’ power play, penalties
Colorado’s power play is an ongoing issue. The hope for head coach Jared Bednar was to start fresh after the break. Even though they officially capitalized on only one of 10 in the first three games back, he likes what his team has done on the man-advantage.
“I like their power play tonight. That was a really good first step coming out of the break on how we’d like to get in attack mode. And they get us a big power play goal, even though it just had just ended. It was a huge goal for us,” Bednar said on Saturday.
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While the Avalanche were contained on the 5-on-4, they gave the Wild and Hawks too many advantages. Six penalties were called on the Avs vs Minnesota and five in the matchup against Chicago.
“Not a big fan of the penalties we took … that tilts the ice for sure,” captain Gabriel Landeskog said after the loss to the Wild. “It just gives them unnecessary momentum here, especially after we just tied it up and we felt like we started tilting the ice. So, yeah, undisciplined, and we got to be better there.”
“The Minny game, we took a lot of dumb penalties …,” Bednar said. “It’s easily fixable. No question. I’m not going to worry about our discipline because of one game, the Minny game, or two, back-to-back games. We’ve been a disciplined team to this point in the year, and we continue to be. Just something we’ll bring to their attention and try to correct.”
The Avs hit the road for another back-to-back against the L.A. Kings and Anaheim Ducks on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. They face the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center before returning to Ball Arena on Sunday to face the Wild again in a matinee showdown.